Advice Needed: Leak/Overflow Protection

[SmokeBellew]

Basic Question: What are the best practices to cope with/prevent leaks and/or overflows when placing an aquarium on carpet?

Background:
1) setting up a 75g tank.
2) I had been planning on placing tank in basement playroom. Playroom has carpet with a cement slab under it.
3) Wife wants me to set it up in upstairs bedroom now...also carpet.

Eventually I will create a filtration room directly under the bedroom as I have a finished workshop/storage room the full width of the house directly under the new placement. However, that will be a future project.

Any advice or directions to applicable threads is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[dfm34]

I would look into an apex controller with the leak detection module.

 

[phillrodrigo]

Setting the sump up correctly is the biggest thing. Mine is herbie and after trial and error there is almost no chance of my tank overflowing ever. My tank is on carpet also. My biggest issues is during water changes. If you can do your water changes with pumps to bring clean water to the tank and a long siphon to a toilet or a drain for old water that would help alot. Salt just trashes everything. The table and the TV Stand are both metal and are starting to rust along with the mini fridge

 

[Fin]

No matter how careful you are, you will spill water on the carpet.

As far as safeguards:
• Make sure when the power goes off, your sump is large enough to catch the water that will siphon back out of your tank through the return line(s).
• Make sure your returns are just below the surface in your display. That will limit the amount of water that can siphon back to your sump.
• Make the bottom of your stand watertight enough to hold 2"-3" of water that may leak from your sump. You can use pond liner or coat the bottom tray of the stand with a paint type of sealant.
• The APEX suggestion above was a good one. The sensors can be used to shut off pumps if water is detected.
• Make an appliace out of PVC that will limit the amount of water that will siphon out of your tank when doing water changes. Just make a U shape out of PVC, with the end that goes in the tank being at the maximum level of the amount of water that will fit in the container that you are siphoning water into. A simple thing that will save you from removing too much water from your tank when you may get distracted. Like this...

• Always check to make sure any bulkhead fittings on your tank or sump are tight and not leaking.
• Cut a section of carpet out where your tank will sit and replace it with ceramic tile. That way, when you need to change your carpet, you won't have to tear down the tank to do it. This also makes small spills around the tank less of an issue. Like this...

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope that helps.

 

[beaslbob]

adjustments as stated above are key.
And it would be wise to place a "water catcher" like those used for washing machines under the sump/fuge also.
as a review adjust so:
1) no sump flood occurs with power out.
2) normal operation returns when the power comes back on.
and the one I forgot LOL
3) The display does not flood when the drain is blocked/failed.
If that isn't totally clear the I highly recommend you get a couple of cheapie plastic storage containers, some pvc, and a pump and set up a test system in your garage/driveway.
much better the flood there and then show the wife how you got it working then to show the wife the soaked carpet from a failure.
my .02

 

[ahmed.boomer]

Assuming you probably dont have this aquarium hooked up so water changes are done through a pipe, the best thing is to place it on a small carpet. This will prevent water from going into the carpet as easily. Saltwater is worse than freshwater. I also lay a blanket down when I DP water changes so any water that happens to come out doesn't go on the carpet.

Remember that random events occur and you cannot prevent everything. We must prepare for them.

 

[SmokeBellew]

Thanks to all for the advice!

Have been working on the stand past few days and have not been able to get back to checking this thread...

 

[Rob Top1]

Mention was made about power outages and back siphoning. What I didn't understand the first time around was I needed to "create" a power outage. Once the sump is running unplug the pump so you are standing there to see what happens.
Sealing the stand is great too. I actually sealed my fish room in such a way that it needs 2" of standing water before I am in trouble. 200 square feet with 2" of water...ugh

 

[SmokeBellew]

Mention was made about power outages and back siphoning. What I didn't understand the first time around was I needed to "create" a power outage. Once the sump is running unplug the pump so you are standing there to see what happens.
Sealing the stand is great too. I actually sealed my fish room in such a way that it needs 2" of standing water before I am in trouble. 200 square feet with 2" of water...ugh

That is a good idea and I will definitely give some trial runs.

In my experience water acts as a catalyst for Murphy's Law.

I had my basement built with two walls. The outer wall was built and then the inner wall was built with 12" of space between the walls. Therefore, as water seeped through the outer wall it would never touch my inner wall. The space in between the walls was 12" deeper than the slab for my basement floor is. Then this built in 12" deep drain was connected to a French drain about 50 yards away from the house. So now any water that seeps through my outer wall will fall to a depth lower than my basement slab and be carried away from the house. Great idea!

2 years after the build the pipe to my French drain stopped up during a tropical storm...basement flooded because the water backed up around my entire basement and exceeded the 12" depth. My builder came out that Sunday morning and we located the pipe and cut into it...water shot several feet into the air.

I now have an open drain down the hill with an additional safety drain closer to the house that I can open whenever we get excessive rain...just to make me sleep better. LOL